A new trailer is out for the film For Greater Glory, about the Cristero War (or ‘Cristiada’) of 1926 to 1929, which was an uprising against Mexico’s then-Marxist government. For Greater Glory opens June 1st, with a cast featuring Andy Garcia, Eva Longoria, Peter O’Toole, Oscar Isaac, Ruben Blades and Bruce Greenwood.
Posted on March 21st, 2012 at 11:58am.
By Joe Bendel. It is a time in Algiers when Jews and Muslims lived together harmoniously. It is also an animated fantasy with a talking cat. Nonetheless, there is a distinctive mix of gentle nostalgia and broad comedy in Joann Sfar & Antoine Delesvaux’s The Rabbi’s Cat, which screens as part of the 2012 New Directors/New Films.
The time is the early 1920’s, after the Russian Revolution, but before World War II. We know this because Rabbi Sfar regularly gets shipments of Russian Rabbinical texts sent to him for safekeeping from the Bolsheviks. He has a cat with no name, known only as “le chat du rabbin.” While his identity comes from the Rabbi, it is the Rabbi’s voluptuous daughter Zlabya whom the cat loves best. However, the Rabbi temporarily forbids the cat to see his mistress when the cat mysteriously begins talking one day.
Actually, the talking thing comes and goes, to the Rabbi’s befuddlement. He will have even more to puzzle out when through a turn of magical realism, a Russian refugee is found alive and well in his latest cargo from the Soviet Union. Of course, nobody can understand his Russian, except the cat, who inconveniently is currently amid one of his speechless stretches.
There are enough Jewish identity jokes in Cat to fill Billy Crystal’s next Catskills set. Yet, there is also something seductively exotic about this cat’s eye view of Algiers. Sfar and Delesvaux earnestly want to present a picture of interfaith tranquility, perfectly represented by the Rabbi and his Sufi cousin, Sheik Mohammad Sfar, two branches of the same but diverse family. They even skewer the unrehabilitated and pre-Spielbergized Tintin in one rather random scene. Yet, they do not completely burry their heads in the Kumbaya sand, depicting the touchy intolerance of an Islamist Bedouin clan, whose hospitality quickly becomes somewhat precarious for the inclusively motley Sfar expedition.
Considering Cat adapts non-sequential volumes of Sfar’s popular graphic novel series, it is hardly surprising the narrative jumps around quite a bit. In an odd way, though, that hop-scotching gives the film its energy. Those looking for something to offend them will probably find it here, but Cat is mostly just harmless fun. Though a bit spicy at times, it is probably okay for older kids, but parents should probably decide on a case by case basis.
Evocatively rendered, Cat’s animation captures the spirit of the original comic art, while conveying the allure of the Middle Eastern locales. It also represents a bit of festival history, holding the distinction of being ND/NF’s first 3D selection and their first screening deliberately intended for family viewing. Recommended for animation fans, particularly admirers of Sfar’s work, and kids who can handle subtitles and more advanced thematic material (but still enjoy talking animals), The Rabbi’s Cat screens this Sunday (3/25) at MoMA and the following Tuesday (3/27) as ND/NF continues at both venues.
LFM GRADE: B
Posted on March 21st, 2012 at 11:28am.
By Joe Bendel. Even in Korea, the movie business is a tough racket. It disillusions people something fierce. However, the characters in Lee Kwang-kuk’s directorial feature debut might have been that way before they got into the industry. They also might be each other or possibly just passing their stories off as their own. Let the narrative games begin when Lee’s Romance Joe (trailer here), screens at the 2012 New Directors/New Films.
This will get complicated. Our first narrator will be Seo Dam, but as an aspiring screenwriter, his storytelling skills cannot compare to someone who has seen a bit of life, like Re-ji, who works for a coffeehouse, whose motto might as well be “coffee, tea, or me.” The parents of a long struggling assistant director have come to his friend Seo Dam fearing their absent son may have committed suicide, just like Woo Joo-hyun, a popular actress with whom he once worked.
As they mill about wondering what to do next, Seo Dam tells them the story of his new screenplay, in which a young boy arrives at Re-ji’s establishment looking for his long lost mother. Simultaneously, Re-ji delivers coffee and hard sells her services to Lee, a screenwriter-director in need of inspiration. She gets him to bite with the tale of “Romance Joe,” a depressed filmmaker who previously checked into the same hotel with suicidal intentions. She had inadvertently walked in on the man while making a delivery with the young boy from Seo Dam’s screenplay. As Romance Joe warms to her, he tells her an episode from his youth, when he fell in love with the haunting Kim Cho-hee after unwanted notoriety drove her to also attempt suicide.
Is Re-ji also the long lost mother of the boy in the screenplay, because they both once tried to end it all by cutting their wrists, just like Kim Cho-hee? This question will be definitively answered. Is Woo Joo-hyun also Kim Cho-hee? Is Re-ji Kim Cho-hee as well? No, most likely not (but don’t take my word for it). It appears safe to assume Re-Ji is Re-ji, whether appearing as subject or narrator and then subject again. Likewise, the missing assistant director is pretty clearly established to be Romance Joe. As for the sequestered director Kim, since Re-ji compliments him on his ironic approach to narrative, he seems the more likely fictional analog to Lee Kwang-kuk than Romance Joe.
That took more time to distill than you want to know. Yet, RJ is a tragic love story at heart, presenting an unlikely vehicle for such bravura postmodern gamesmanship. In contrast, a cerebral mystery like Mariano Llinás’ head-reeling Extraordinary Stories lends itself to such an approach quite well, because viewers do not resent having information withheld from them and perspectives fiddled with.
In a way, RJ is like a set of deliberately mismatched Russian dolls that do not quite fit within each other. Yet, the drama is so genuinely earnest, particularly that of the young lovers, it still pulls viewers in, even with the constant narrative shifts. Lee Chae-eun is quite remarkable, equally convincing and heartbreaking as the teenaged and thirtysome Kim Cho-hee. Yet it is Shin Dong-mi who really makes the film sing. It is a star-making turn, appealingly wry or saucy, depending on the circumstances. Unfortunately, the relative blandness of several male cast members does not help viewers looking for hooks to grab onto, but impressive young David Lee develops some poignant chemistry with the older Lee Chae-eun.
No matter how viewers respond to RJ, it is a film that will stick with them, daring them to make conclusions about what they saw and when it happened. Lee Kwang-kuk rather subversively deconstructs Korean tearjerkers like Il Mare (ill-advisedly remade by Hollywood as The Lake House), but it is Shin and the other Lees, David and Chae-eun, who really make it work. Recommended for adventurous film snobs, Romance Joe screens this Saturday (3/24) at MoMA and Monday (3/26) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of New Directors/New Films 41.
LFM GRADE: A-
Posted on March 21st, 2012 at 11:26am.